Indonesia TCSS, Exchange Rate, Favourite Song/Music update

[DageDage]

At rush hour every weekday, women with babies slung across their arms line the traffic-choked streets of the Indonesian capital, flagging down drivers looking to game Jakarta's carpooling laws by hiring a few extra passengers.

But revelations some of the infants used in this years-old streetside business have been rented out by criminal syndicates, and even drugged to keep them quiet, has outraged Jakartans and prompted a crackdown by city authorities.

Motorists know at rush hour they need at least two passengers to enter main roads by law, so rely on "jockeys": These are often poor young women with a child, who act as passengers-for-hire in exchange for a small fee.

Children tug on heartstrings and help attract drivers, said Risma, a jockey hailing cars near a major roadway in South Jakarta with her three-year-old son.

"People sympathise easily with you if you've got a baby," she told AFP, stressing she only took her child because she had no other choice.

The strategy has existed openly for years, but as outrage mounted over this unfolding child exploitation scandal, the government has now suspended the carpooling rule, putting jockeys out of work.

Last month, police confirmed many of the child jockeys lining Jakarta's streets had been rented out by their families to criminal syndicates.

After a months-long investigation, police in South Jakarta swooped on four adults they believed were renting out children as beggars or child jockeys for 200,000 rupiah (USD$15) per day. Two children -- aged seven and five years old -- and a baby, aged just six months, were taken into protective care.

- Children drugged -

The baby was "unresponsive" when they found him -- drugged with Clonazepam, a strong sedative used to treat anxiety conditions in adults, Audie Latuheru, the head of criminal investigation at the police department, told AFP.

Latuheru said the infant had been given the tranquillizer, acquired from a pharmacy without prescription, to make it calm and compliant during the long hours waiting on the roadside and ferrying about in strangers' cars.

"Nobody wants to have a crying baby in the car," he said.

Deputy head of South Jakarta police Surawan, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, said information from one of those arrested, steered police to three women accused of running an "entire syndicate" selling children for exploitation, who are also now in custody.

The allegations of drugging and exploitation rackets -- conducted right under the noses of unsuspecting motorists -- has surprised and outraged Jakartans, though police admit they've known about it for some time but struggled to prosecute cases.

"We have always known that many of those street kids, beggars and child jockeys might have been rented or sold, but it's hard for us to prove," explained Surawan.

"What can we do? Conduct a DNA test every time we see a beggar or a jockey with a baby?," he added.

Asking for identification is of little help in Indonesia, where many people and children are not officially registered in any government system.

There is a push for those involved in such exploitation to be charged with human trafficking, but for those at the coalface, the priority has to the victim's wellbeing.

"Our focus here is to give these children their rights to education, recreation and to be loved, not to solve cases," Sulistya Ariadhi, a social worker at a government child protection agency, told AFP.

But police and social services doubt suspending the so-called '3-in-1' carpooling rule will do anything for the 4.1 million street children in Indonesia.

According to government figures, around 35,000 young people face exploitation -- from prostitution to begging scams.

As motorists fret that the city's traffic will only worsen with jockeys out of business, police and social services say doing away with carpooling laws will do little for vulnerable children.

Surawan said: "They may not be jockeys anymore, but the perpetrators will find a way around."

[TwinTowers]

Nulgath & Dage Dage are both your contributions really relevant in this thread or SBF. Nobody cares about your news/posts.

[brassicbrassic]

An acoustic singer

[Naka_Timo]

Afgan Bawalah Cintaku

[brassicbrassic]

another acoustic

[Nulgath]

April 12 (Reuters) - Indonesia, currently serving a FIFA ban, are one of the four countries vying to host the 2023 Asian Cup, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said on Tuesday.

The AFC Competitions Committee said they had received expression of interests from China, Thailand, South Korea as well as Indonesia, banned almost a year ago for political interference in the local football association.

The quartet who met the March 31 deadline will now have to provide government guarantees, legal opinion on their bids and enter into a bidding agreement, the AFC said after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Thailand and Indonesia jointly staged the 2007 edition with Malaysia and Vietnam, while China last hosted it in 2004 and South Korea in 1960.

United Arab Emirates will stage the 2019 Asian Cup after they edged out a bid from Iran to host the tournament, which will feature 24 teams for the first time after expanding from 16 in Australia last year.

The Competitions Committee, chaired by Qatar's Saoud Al Mohannadi, also voted in favour of moving West Asian matches in the AFC Champions League and second tier AFC Cup to Monday and Tuesday in a bid to boost attendances and television interest.

The proposal had come from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who also argued that playing Champions League matches on Tuesday and Wednesday was hindering their domestic league ambitions.

The change will come into affect next year but the East Asian clubs will continue to play on Wednesday and Thursday.

The AFC also agreed to bring back a tournament for their worst ranked sides this year after they scrapped the Challenge Cup in 2014.

Nepal, Brunei, Macau, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and two other sides to be determined, will take part in the 14-day tournament at a neutral venues which will provide at least three matches each and also coaching, refereeing and technical courses.

(Writing by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

[Naka_Timo]

REPUBLIK-TIADA GUNA LAGI (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

[Metalboy]

Bro Naka_Timo - if you have any nice indo dugem songs.. Mind sharing too (me love dugem)

[Nulgath]

Kendari, SE Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - Crystal methamphetamine smuggled into and distributed in Indonesia was produced in Malaysia, and the raw materials came from China, according to an official of the National Narcotic Agency (BNN).

"Based on investigations, the raw materials of methamphetamine were from China, produced in Malaysia and marketed in Indonesia," Deputy BNN in charge of the Public Empowerment Ins. Gen. Bahtiar Tambunan said here, Saturday.

Indonesia has been chosen as their market because the countrys population is huge and its territory is vast, he said.

He urged the Indonesian public to realize the dangers of illicit drugs in order to prevent destruction and protect the younger generation.

"Drugs produced in Malaysia have entered the Indonesian territory through land and sea routes, and only a few via airports," he said.

Indonesia has established a synergy with some neighboring countries to eradicate drugs, he said.

However, the Indonesian people must protect themselves and reject drugs in order to stop traffickers from marketing them in this country.

[brassicbrassic]

Nice song

[brassicbrassic]

Another nice song

[DageDage]

Indonesian prosecutors on Tuesday sought a seven-month prison sentence for a US retiree accused of blasphemy after he allegedly pulled the plug on a mosque loudspeaker during a prayer reading.

The August 22 incident in the middle of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in retired Californian engineer Gregory Luke, 64, needing a police escort from his home on Lombok island as a mob tore it to pieces around him.

Prosecutors said Luke had blasphemed against Islam, the dominant religion in Indonesia, when he allegedly barged into the mosque to complain that a nightly Ramadan prayer reading was too loud.

"We recommend a sentence of seven months' jail as he is guilty of blasphemy and committing an act of hatred," prosecutor Baiq Nurjanah told a court in Praya, Lombok.

She said the maximum sentence of five years in jail was not being sought because the defendant, who runs a guesthouse for tourists on the island, had "expressed regret of his act".

Wearing a sarong, polo shirt and black Muslim hat, Mr Luke asked the judges for the lightest sentence possible and apologised for his "wrongdoing".

"I apologise for my wrongdoing in the mosque. I've followed all the trial proceedings and listened to the witnesses' testimonies. I hope I can get the lightest sentence," he said.

Mr Luke has previously denied pulling the plug on the loudspeakers used to broadcast the call to prayer – a feature on most mosques in Indonesia.

In comments to the local media, he has said he went to the mosque to ask for the volume to be turned down when he was set upon by a group of local youths, who pushed him to the ground and pelted him with rocks.

A mob then chased him to his home and ransacked it as police looked on, apparently unable to intervene.

No one has been charged with any offence related to the mob attack on his house.

[DageDage]

A member of parliament from an Islamic party which promoted anti-pornography legislation has resigned after being caught watching porn in parliament.

Mr Arifinto of the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) was photographed looking at the images on Friday.

He said he had inadvertently opened an email link which led him to the images.

Pornography has become one of the testing grounds of conservative Islam's influence over politics in Indonesia.

"For the recent developing media coverage, I apologise to all members of the party and parliament," Mr Arifinto - who goes by one name - told a news conference.

"I will continue to work for my party. I'm also going to continue to better myself, by repentance, reading the Koran and asking for guidance."

[DageDage]

Taking the cue from the 1970s hit TV show Charlie's Angels, Indonesia has hired three "fashionable cops" in an attempt to improve public distrust in an institution seen as corrupt.

Indonesia's police force hired three female cops that "seem more at home on a fashion catwalk than in a congested street" to deliver a daily traffic report for the morning and evening news, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Eny Regama, Avvy Olivia Atam and Eka Yulianti help monitor traffic in Jakarta's near 10 million residents every morning.

"This is one way of building a good relationship between police and people," Atam told CS Monitor.

They all received prior police training. Yulianti worked in the Narcotics Division when she joined the police force in 2006.

Nearly a third of the traffic monitoring division that was set up in 2010 by the Government are made up of women.

The Indonesian National Police isn't the only group suffering a tarnished reputation from corruption.

Corruption is a major cause of poverty and violence in certain regions of the country, The Jakarta Globe reports.

Politicians in Papua, the largest and easternmost province of Indonesia, were reported to have stolen trillions of rupiahs - equivalent to hundreds of thousands of US dollars - that were meant to go into local infrastructure.

[brassicbrassic]

Nice song